Report: FBI investigating leak about US cyberwarfare program

The FBI is investigating to find the source of leaks about a classified U.S. cyberwarfare program against Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The investigation is in response to a story that appeared in the New York Times on Friday, which reported classified details about the origins and impetus of the U.S. cyberstrategy, particularly STUXNET — a computer worm discovered in 2010, which reprogrammed the computers at Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz to destroy centrifuges necessary for enriching uranium.

STUXNET, which has long been suspected by analysts to have been developed in relative cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, was part of a larger classified program called Olympic Games, a program initiated under President George W. Bush in 2006 when the option of an all-out military attack was considered off the table.

The piece was an adapted excerpt from a new book, “Confront and Conceal” by author David E. Sanger, who conducted research for the book over the course of 18 months.

Arizona Rebublican Sen. John McCain said during a Senate floor speech Tuesday that the leaks appeared to be “an attempt to further the president’s political ambitions for the sake of his re-election at the expense of our national security,” but Sanger said in an appearance on the Sunday CBS program “Face the Nation” that deliberate White House leaking “wasn’t my experience.”

Former ambassador David Gross told The Daily Caller on Tuesday he did not think that the revelation of the cyberwarfare program would damage the U.S. position in upcoming December talks in Dubai, during which the United Nations’ 193 member countries will discuss the future of the Internet.